REALLY Cheap 1000Hz Hall Effect Controller – PXN P5 Review (PC, Android, iOS, Nintendo Switch)

I’m just going to put this up front. This controller, if purchased from Aliexpress anyway, will set you back just £20 – or £27 if you buy it from Amazon. That is ludicrously cheap, and yet, at least on paper, this looks like a near ultimate controller. Dual hall effect joysticks, hall effect triggers, 1000 hertz polling rate, quad extra buttons on the back, locking triggers for FPS games, and even an internal gyroscope so when you use this with a Nintendo Switch it can do motion control. Seriously, everything about this says this is an excellent bit of kit. Of course reality is a little different, so let’s dive in.

This is the PXN P5, a straight Xbox One controller rip in terms of styling, but is otherwise a pretty high spec controller. As mentioned, the joysticks here are both using hall effect sensors. While I’m sure you know what that is, and why it is a great thing, for those that don’t, in short hall effect sensors sense the strength of magnets, and in this case the old potentiometers – the physical wiper sweeping over a resistor – have been replaced by magnets and hall effect sensors, which means these joysticks will never drift or fail. How nice is that! Some might be grumbling in the comments about “TMR”, which still uses magnets but is a little more power efficient and accurate. TMR sticks are just a lot less common to find out in the wild right now. Once they are more available I’m sure the P6 or whatever will include it, but realistically there isn’t all that much difference. 

The same goes for the triggers, although it’s worth talking about the locking feature too. This is a feature basically all third party controllers seem to offer, basically there’s a little lock that slides inside the trigger cap to limit the travel. For FPS games that is easier to deal with, and the joy of that being on a switch means if you want to swap to say a racing game where you want full control again you can just slide it out. Some do it better than others though. Razer’s newest Wolverine V3 Pro, and the NXYI Master P1 – another cheap hall effect 1000 hertz controller, review of that in the cards above – both don’t just slide a bit of plastic in to limit the travel, they slide a microswitch in so you now get a nice clicky button under the trigger. This P5 doesn’t, it’s just a travel lock. That’s fine, especially at the price, but it’s worth noting the difference anyway. 

And actually speaking of differences, I should mention that everything is noticeably lower quality than the Razer options. The ABXY buttons are regular mushy membrane switches, compared to Razer’s nice mecha-tactile clicky switches. The same goes for the bumpers which again are regular, kind of mushy buttons, compared to the nice clicky ones Razer offers, and again the same with the DPad – although at least that is a circular design which should make it easier to use for those games that need it. 

In terms of feel and quality, the joysticks are a solid 5 out of 10. They move perfectly well, with a bearing ring on the outside for smoother at-the-limits movement, but the tip is a less than quality feeling rubber overmolding and, unlike the admittedly power of ten more expensive Razer controller, these tips are not replaceable. Now if you consider this a throw-away bit of tech, that won’t be a problem, but thanks to the hall effect joysticks this doesn’t have a built-in e-waste timer, so not being able to replace the consumable parts, namely these tips, is a bit of a shame. Luckily that’s the only bit of rubber overmolding on the controller. The grips, at least on the back side, are actually pretty grippy despite being plain molded plastic thanks to the cube textured finish. What’s interesting is that the front and rear halves of the shell are clearly a different colour and texture – something that’s evident by just looking at the thing from the side. It doesn’t really matter, although it does speak to the quality of the thing. 

Carrying on to the back you’ll find the other common addition to these third party controllers – extra buttons. This one has four, all arranged in a line, with the two outer ones being placed well, basically right where your middle finger rests when gripping the controller, but the two more inboard ones are considerably harder to reach. It isn’t impossible, but it takes some effort. The switches under them are also a little underwhelming. They aren’t as clicky and tactile as I’d hoped. It’s not the end of the world of course, but it isn’t quite as nice as I’d like.

I should note that just like the NYXI controller – which I wouldn’t be surprised to find out is just a different skin on the same internals to this – this has a small switch on the back that lets you toggle between PC via the dongle, phone Bluetooth in the middle and Nintendo Switch on the right. That is a bit of versatility even the Wolverine V3 Pro can’t match, even if it’s versatility that I personally don’t find much value in. It’s nice to have the option at least! And speaking of options, it turns out that the infinity symbol button on the front, in combination with various other buttons, lets you customise at least some of the controller’s features without any additional software. You can toggle between XInput and DInput modes, enter or exit the air mouse mode (using the gyro as a mouse), adjust the motor vibration amount, program the rear buttons, and switch the joystick deadzones on the fly. Pretty handy, right? You can download the very poorly reviewed PXN android app to customise the controller more directly, although I wouldn’t want to install a random app that needs location permissions just to customise an extra-cheap controller.

Actually gaming on the thing was still a perfectly decent experience. It’s clearly a cheap controller – it feels it – but it plays well. The internal 1000mAh battery should last for, at least according to PXN, around 28 hours of usage, although the more rumble you have the lower that figure drops. For FPS games the locking triggers do help, and the joysticks are well calibrated giving smooth and easy to control movement. I can’t say I’m a console player these days – I haven’t been for a decade and a half now – so my ability to comment on especially FPS gaming performance of a controller is somewhat limited, but at least from a layman’s perspective is feels decent, similar to the other controllers I’ve tested recently anyway. For racing games, there I have more experience. Interestingly Assetto Corsa is considerably harder to control with a controller than a keyboard as all the assists turn themselves off and you actually need to pay attention to throttle and steering which with my variety of disabilities is actually pretty hard, but for someone more able-bodied this should be a pretty decent experience. 

I did of course use my open source latency testing tool – available at OSRTT.com, linked in the description – to test the latency of this thing, both wired and wirelessly, and I’m surprised and pleased to say that, at least when connected via a USB C cable, this is pretty fast, at least when it comes to controllers. It returned a 16.5 millisecond average when wired, which isn’t too far behind the Wolverine V3 Pro Wired, even in its supposed 1000 hertz mode too. Wireless performance again is only two milliseconds behind the V3 Pro, which is to say not amazing – 23.5 milliseconds is a fairly long time with peripherals, but that appears to be a common thing with controllers so I can’t hate this one in particular. 

So, for your £20-£30, it seems like you get a pretty decent bit of kit. Sure, it’s nowhere near as premium as Razer’s V2 or V3 options I’ve tested – this feels notably cheaper outright – but it’s also between a quarter and a tenth of the price. For that you get a pretty decent wireless controller with wide device support, hall effect joysticks that won’t drift and a decent amount of on-controller configuration I actually really like. If you don’t mind it feeling less premium, you’re getting one hell of a deal here.